Family language policies among Bangladeshi migrants in Southeast Queensland, Australia

The study of family language policy has emerged as a significant domain for multilingual development, language maintenance and cultural continuity. Family Language Policy seeks to connect the studies of child language acquisition with the field of language policy research in its approach to understand language maintenance and shift among different migrant families and communities. However, few studies have been conducted in this area. Through the in-depth analysis of 19 interviews, this article explores family language policy employed by Bangladeshi migrants in South East Queensland. The results show that participants evidence a strong will to maintain their mother tongue for which they resort to strategies from family to social domains. The implementation of their policies is facilitated by what they perceive as helpful macro-level processes. That is, they approve of the Australian policies that promote multiculturalism.